Choosing the first winner of our prestigious award has been no easy task…

When it comes to travel and holidays, there are those of us who consider ourselves tourists, and those who think of ourselves more as travellers. Whilst for some, the perfect holiday is returning to a favourite resort year after year, relaxing in the sunshine with everything around us immediately to hand and familiar, others are more intrepid in their taste for adventure and crave exploration a little more off the beaten track.

World Travel Blog has always been committed to discovering those roads less travelled, which can always be found even in the most popular of tourist spots, and our anecdotal advice and articles are aimed at providing some insight into how such endeavours are best undertaken. But sometimes, for some trips, a specialist is needed, and that’s what has led us to launch our Travel Company of the Year Award this year.

Choosing our first winner hasn’t been easy – there are many agents in the market today offering a wide range of trips to suit varying budgets. We’ve been rigorous in our selection, though, and scored each of our shortlisted operators on the areas which matter most, namely quality of the itineraries on offer, overall value of holidays, how well organised the trips are and, all importantly, how knowledgable the staff and representatives are about your chosen destination. Feedback has been gleaned from not only the World Travel Blog team, but also independent reports from individuals and groups who have used these companies first hand.

We are, therefore, very pleased to announce that after very careful consideration, the winner of the first World Travel Blog Travel Company of the Year Award is:

Regent Holidays have been chosen for their unquestionable product knowledge, their willingness to be of assistance both before and after booking, and during the holiday itself, the friendliness of their team of experts, the fantastic choice of locations available, the overall exceptional value and for having innovation in spades.

So, congratulations guys – this award is not given out easily, and you should be very proud. Long may you continue to provide the excellent service you do!

Regent Holidays
Colston Tower
Colston Street
Bristol
BS1 4XE

Visit www.regent-holidays.co.uk

Tel: +44 (0)20 7666 1244

Email: regent@regentholidays.co.uk

The route from Yalta to Simferopol, Ukraine, is officially the world’s longest trolleybus ride…

Snaking its way through 86 kilometres (around 54 miles) of the Crimean mountains, at the pace of a snail, is the Yalta to Simferopol trolleybus. Built in the late 1950s, this is officially the longest trolleybus ride in the world, which may seem reason enough to do it simply to include in your list of travel achievements. But add to that the breathtaking views as it climbs through the Yaila mountains across the Angarskiy Pass, reaching 752 metres (almost 2,500 feet) at its highest point before dropping down to the Black Sea coastal town of Alushta, from where the remaining 41 kilometres to Yalta twists its way above some stunning seascapes, and you have an essentially sublime experience.

If you fancy doing this, leave plenty of time if you have to catch a flight at Simferopol airport – the old Skoda trolleybuses (do try and get on one of these old charmers if you can, although from 2010 they are slowly being replaced by more modern, but not nearly as much fun, Bogdan variants) pootle along at about 30mph, so you’ll need to allow a good two to two-and-a-half hours to make the entire trip, and you might want to consider allowing even more time for the not too infrequent break-downs. An alternative, of course, is to do it the other way round if you’re intending to spend some time in Yalta, at least that way you shouldn’t have any particularly pressing deadlines.

Well worth taking the time to do if you’re happy to sit back and take the slow road through a stupendous mountainscape and enjoy the amble. At around 15 hryvnias (about £1.20) it’s a very cost effective journey on an ecologically sound transport system. Win, win!

More frittenish, feline fabulosity from the four corners of the world. You know you want them!

As we’ve already said, it matters not where your travels and adventures take you, it won’t be long before you stumble across (or completely, undignifiedly over) a nearby fritten. They won’t mind. Well, they won’t care actually and will probably just start to have a good old wash, but they’ll still manage to capture your heart, plus whatever you might have about your person that they can munch on.

Some would say they’re full of cupboard love, and I suppose that’s true – they know exactly where the meat and kibbles reside.

So enjoy this latest selection. and remember – if you’d like to post your own, simply email them to frittens@worldtravelblog.co.uk Well, an image of them – frittens themselves aren’t too keen on cyberspace. No food, you see. And please keep them to a meg or under.

And lastly – apologies that some of these aren’t the finest quality images that you’re used to on World Travel Blog. Whilst some of them completely love the limelight, others are just that way out, so you have to grab ‘em while you can and just get what you can get.

Enjoy!

Our journey into the Chernobyl exclusion zone is featured in a CNN special this weekend

World Travel Blog’s Nige Burton will be appearing on a CNN special this weekend, due to be screened at 13:00 on Saturday, 30th October and then repeated at 18:30 on Sunday, 31st October.

The half hour programme, entitled CNN 30: Were You There?, looks back at major events since the launch of CNN in 1980.

Covering recent devastating events such as the Haiti earthquake and the Mumbai terror attacks, the project also looks back at some of the defining moments in the past three decades.

Nige’s report deals with the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and features a video account of his 2008 trip there plus a selection of his haunting images.

The programme features eye-witness accounts from CNN iReporters across the globe, and after the initial screening, the feature will remain live on the CNN website indefinitely.

Click here to find out more about CNN 30: Were You There?

Promo for CNN 30: Were You There?

See Nige on CNN

It doesn’t matter where you are, a fritten’s never far away

Wherever you go in the world, you can usually spot a fritten – the World Travel Blog word for a cat or a kitten – within minutes.

They’re usually quite friendly little examples, although in countries where there’s the slightest risk of rabies, petting is not recommended. Frittens are mostly friendly, as we know, but if one of them is that way out, they’ll just as soon take a side swipe at you as look at you.

The choir of furry felines here have been spotted as far afield as Chernobyl in Ukraine to Listvyanka in the depths of Siberia. Each is as fiercely independent as the next one, but equally possesses the unique fritten ability to make a saucer-eyed demand for a fillet of fresh Hake, lightly poached in some milk.

If you’ve managed to capture your own shot of a precocious Persian, a treacherous tabby or an adorable angora, why not send it in to us for inclusion in the gallery.

Email your image (no more than 1 meg please) to:

frittens@worldtravelblog.co.uk

Miaow.

Ukrainian adventure, part 4: Florence Nightingale’s Crimea

Monday, 15th September 2008

Awoke around 7.30 feeling a little better than of late, and to glorious Crimean sunshine. We decided to throw up our window blinds and watch a landscape drift by that would ordinarily go unseen by the likes of us. Not sure how long the sunshine will last, as by 9.50 the distant, whispy clouds seem to be gathering together into something rather thicker and greyer. Jamie has gone in search of the ‘Pectopah’ carriage foraging for breakfast.

He returned some minutes later, having procured ‘safe pickings’ of Snicker bars, bananas and crisps; not ideal breakfast fare, but such as would not give me a metaphoric prod in my fragile stomach.

When we arrived at Simferopol, the sky was clear blue and the sunshine baking. This would do nicely, we thought, as we disembarked the train. There was a distinctly eastern feel to this Crimean capital, and we looked forward in earnest to our few days spent on this beautiful peninsula.

The journey through the Crimean mountains can be a treacherous one, stretching for some hundred or so kilometres first up into the skies and then relentlessly down toward Yalta. It is essentially a three-laned highway, the middle section being a ‘chicken lane’, these having been outlawed in the UK in the 1980s as deathtraps. Crimean drivers, however, do seem to know what they are doing, and ours, the lovely Leonid, was very cautious in his humble Renault Kangoo, quite happy to amble along and take the full hour and a half allowed for the journey.

As we wound our way up into the mountains, stormy clouds gathered at the summits and, despite our best hopes, remained with us to Yalta. Due to a thirty minute traffic jam as we entered the town, we were delivered to the Bristol Hotel at around 2.25pm. We tipped Leonid handsomely for our safe conduct, and settled in to a very superior hotel, the only gripe being that “the lift does not work”; never mind, the exercise would be good for us.

The clouds gathered menacingly over Yalta for the rest of the day, blowing in slightly cooler air off the Black Sea. There was another problem here that we hadn’t really anticipated: almost nobody spoke a word of English, and those that did commanded only a very patchy vocabulary. No signs were in English, no tours in English – hardly even any menus. Having English, German and a degree of French and Spanish between us cut absolutely no ice whatsoever; it was Russian or nothing here.

By the time the full realisation of this had hit us, it was far too late to do anything meaningful about it. After a stroll down the kitsch promenade (believe it or not, Yalta is twinned with Margate) we retired to the restaurant, but not without first speaking to Ihor Brudny, recommended by our trusty Lonely Planet guide, to arrange our trip to Sevastopol and Balaklava, and our ‘Panorama’ tour for Wednesday. It was going to cost a small fortune, but he did take credit cards and it would be a private tour.

A supper of chicken and jacket spuds at the Bristol ‘Pectopah’, washed down with a smooth, dry Crimean Cab Sauv, set us up nicely for sleep, which did not elude us for long.

Tuesday, 16th September 2008

A grim start to the day as far as sunshine, but a temperature approaching 26 degrees announced Tuesday. After a hearty breakfast, we decided to take the ferry trip to Lastochkyno Gnizdo (Swallows’ Nest Castle), one of the iconic landmarks of this part of the Black Sea coast. As we approached Pier 7 we were told, in no uncertain terms, that the boat wasn’t running. Our communication difficulties prevented us from getting any further, although we realised that the reason was obviously the rough seas which had made themselves apparent, despite the absence of even a breath of wind. After several further failed attempts to procure some kind of tour, we had to accept that our language barrier was going to be a real handicap unless we acted fast; Yalta was running out and we would soon be on our way back to Kiev.

A call to Regent put us in direct contact with Dialog Kiev, the company who had originally put our adventure together. The wonderful Viviana there organised an afternoon tour within half an hour, and we scarcely had time for a scandalously priced glass of disconcertingly chilled red at the Bristol before being met outside our hotel by Sasha, a wonderfully camp sixty-something, who would be our guide for the afternoon. And our driver for this excursion? None other than the lovely Leonid himself, making his second appearance on our Crimean stage.

Sasha’s tour of the Livadia Palace (where the Yalta conference between Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin took place in 1945) and the Swallow’s Nest Castle was exemplary, being both informative and entertaining. He even seemed to manage giving us clear blue skies and warm sunshine, making it a perfect afternoon.

Our evening was spent at Foue, our newly discovered Yalta ‘local’, where beer is half the price of that served at our hotel, and then later we took a superb supper of pork in cheese and mushroom sauce at a gorgeous little restaurant along the promenade. Ukrainian red and vodka also featured, helping to make this just one of those special nights.

Aah, time for bed, and preparation for our ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ tour tomorrow, although here it’s not really called that. But that’s more or less what it is.

Wednesday, 17th September 2008

It had been raining very heavily through the night, and Wednesday dawned overcast and grey. We breakfasted early, and were collected by our driver for the day, Sergey Zenkin, promptly at 9.30am. On the way back from the Swallow’s Nest yesterday afternoon, Sasha had pointed out a statue at the site of one of the last Soviet Sanatoria, now a hotel, which depicted two soldiers apparently kissing. He gave us a wry smile and told us it was the first Soviet monument to gays. By the time he had finished his little story, we were too far down the road for Leonid to turn back, but Sasha had written a note in Russian, asking Sergey to take us this way for a photo stop this morning, which he was more than happy to do. The real background to this impressive sculpture was that it represents friendship between soldiers of different nations; a place where all can be well. Sasha’s version may have been a touching little ditty, but not entirely accurate, although it does seem to have become a piece of Yaltan folklore these days.

We headed toward Sevastopol with Sergey, in reasonably impressive English, pointing out various local landmarks along the way, including the huge rocky outcrop of Foros, with just 280 kilometres of Black Sea stretching between this most southerly point of the Crimean Peninsula and Turkey.

It took us about an hour and a half to reach the outskirts of Balaklava, where we met up with Anna, who was to be our English speaking guide for the day. After agreeing roughly what our agenda would be, we set off for our first stop at a secret nuclear submarine base. This had been modified into a bunker after the second world war by Stalin, in case of a nuclear attack. It nestles just by the ‘hidden’ Balaklava harbour, and the hermetically sealed doors would swing tight shut in just thirty-two minutes after the signal of an attack. Just who would’ve made it down here is open to some speculation, given the facts that hardly anyone knew of its existence and the remoteness of its location.

Ukrainian adventure, part 3: Odessa, the Potemkin Steps and Prymorsky Bulvar

Friday, 12th September 2008

I’m writing up this entry on Saturday morning as yesterday was just dreadful. After a restless night on the train, I awoke in a rainy Odessa feeling absolutely awful: upset stomach, aching all over and shivery. Fortune smiled on us a little though, as our young driver was waiting for us outside the carriage and, after a walk of what seemed like miles to the transfer car (you forget just how long these overnight trains are) we were whisked away to the Black Sea Hotel (Hotel Chornoye More) and a room we could check into immediately. I made straight for my bed, and lay down until early afternoon in the hope of improving my condition.

Still feeling terrible, I threw myself into the shower at around oneish, determined to explore a little of this fascinating and famous Ukrainian city. A look around the hotel room in the now blazing sunshine showed it up for what it was; its personality was distinctly Soviet, with its dark brown painted doors and architraves, badly chipped and damaged, its cream wood-chip wallpaper and crowning glory of Kremlin orange curtains, which, despite their best efforts, failed miserably to meet in the middle. And to think ours was supposed to have been one of the refurbished rooms! It must have been refurbished in 1972; I’d love to have seen one of the others.

The room itself, with its shabby Soviet chic, was more than adequate, but more disappointing was the distance we were from the centre and, indeed, the sea. It was a good half an hour’s walk through not the prettiest of streets, with no access by bus, trolley-bus or tram. The only alternative was to take a taxi, but prices were relatively extortionate, ranging from 30 to 50 hryvnia within a few yards of asking.

Arriving at the City Hall, with its impressive crimson walls and brilliant white colonnades, one couldn’t fail to be impressed by Prymorsky bul, Odessa’s stylish seafront walkway, complete with replica ‘gas’ lamps. Having seen the state of the place between the hotel and Prymorsky bul, though, it did all seem a little ‘fur coat and no knickers’.

We made our way to the famous Potemkin Steps (all 192 of them) and dined in a superb (if rather slow) restaurant opposite them. I could only manage a dish of borsch with some bread, but Jamie managed some impressive looking potato dumplings stuffed with meat and mushrooms; maybe I would be up to trying something more adventurous here before we had to leave.

This was enough for my fragile state; reluctantly, we made our way back to the hotel, where I took to my bed for the remainder of the day and night, surfacing briefly to eat, via room service, some inoffensive Ukrainian ravioli filled with meat, cabbage and potato, and watch an endless stream of Ukrainian cookery programmes, packed to the brim with wonderful, over-the-top presenters. So much for our first day in Odessa – let’s see what tomorrow would bring.

Saturday, 13th September, 2008

A rainy day in Odessa is what Saturday ushered in. In fact, a rainy day over the whole of the Ukraine; what happened to those glorious, sunny skies that the BBC website had predicted for months before we came? It felt as if Odessa was slipping away from us: one more night in this hotel and we’d be checking out and Simferopol bound, ready for that supposedly arduous car transfer to Yalta, and we hardly seemed to have seen any of this notorious city. Time to put that right. I felt considerably better than yesterday, despite a persistently grumbling tummy, so we took a light breakfast in the restaurant and braved the worst of the rain clad in jeans and coats. The temperature wasn’t too bad, but it was miserable weather. We eventually fetched up at Eugenia Travel where, with the assistance of a very knowledgeable Janna, who also spoke excellent English, we booked ourselves on a private tour of the city for 250 hryvnia each; we would depart for the three hour trip at 2pm.

Janna also pointed me in the right direction for a “very big book shop” where I could purchase a book on Odessa. When we arrived at the store, it was indeed a vast bookshop, and I did find a suitable volume. The girl on the till was not of a particularly favourable disposition, however, and – without a smile – informed me that neither of my visa cards would work, and I would have to pay cash. Now I knew that at least my visa debit was working fine, as I’d just drawn cash on it from the ATM a few minutes earlier. Cards generally seemed to be a bit of a problem throughout Ukraine: we had experienced problems in Kiev and Lviv, even at ATMs, which were very hit and miss. The lovely Janna all but refused to take my visa, explaining it made it difficult to pay the guides, so again I had to stump up the cash. I can’t believe they live so hand to mouth; perhaps they do.

Book purchased, it was back to the hotel for a quick beer in the bar before being collected by the very forthright Amelia and her trusty subordinate driver. Unfortunately, the tour was literally a bit of a wash out, being a whistle stop tour of Odessan highlights through rainy, misty windows which did everything they could to obscure the view. Amelia refused to leave the minibus – “I am too cold” – and so we rarely stopped for a look around anything. Once, we were permitted to get out to examine at closer quarters the Roman wall discovered during the refurbishment of Prymorsky bulvar, the Maritime Boulevard, but our guide remained inside and we battled through torrential rain. You can tell when a good tour is kept down when its proposed three hour duration can be made to spin out little more than two. Most of that time, having decided that Jamie was my son, she went on to quiz us annoyingly on our knowledge of Russian history and culture: “I know English writers,” she proclaimed, “like Charles Dickens and Jonathan Swift, so you should know Russian artists…”. Well we did know the obvious ones like those. She ended with a mild put down: “Normally it is American tourists who know nothing, but English ones are usually educated.” Excepting us, then, that would be. Oh well, at least it had given us a heads up for tomorrow should the weather turn clement enough for any meaningful exploration.

What she did give us was an insight into Ukranian life and economy. Most of the working class, she explained, earned an average of 500 to 600 hryvnia per month, whilst to survive it was necessary to earn at least $2,000. As taxation was at 40%, most employers worked a scam, only declaring a smaller amount of workers’ earnings, thus making it impossible to work out any kind of national average wage. There was also a critical shortage of professionals; “Many of the qualified Polish doctors have gone to England,” she told us, “where they can earn proper salaries. This left a huge gap in skilled medical professionals in Poland, so in turn, many Ukrainian doctors have gone to Poland, where the standard of living is approaching that of western Europe, so now we have a great shortage. People just cannot earn enough money in Ukraine, but prices are like those of the west. This government does nothing about it – it just doesn’t work.”

After being dropped back at the hotel, we decided to settle ourselves in the bar again, as the ever strengthening rain precluded us from any worthwhile outdoor activity. A dour security guard barked at me in Russian, telling me I wasn’t allowed to take my camera bag into the bar, and that I must leave it in the cloakroom. No such order had been issued at lunchtime, and as there was about £4,000 worth of kit in there, I flounced out in a fit of pique, telling him what he could do with his bar. This is obviously the price you pay for having a rather seedy casino attached to the hotel, and combined with a room which was barely clean, empty condom wrappers and beer bottles under both beds which remained for the duration of our stay, and brusque, unhelpful staff that on one occasion offered us Russian girls, it prompted our resolve to inform Regent of this unfortunate choice in their itinerary. We had even asked a receptionist if there was any alternative conveyance to the beach than Shanks’s pony, but she told us no, it was best to walk. We later discovered that both a trolley-bus and a ‘little yellow bus’ went directly there just a block away. Perhaps she couldn’t be bothered to get involved. Wrong job, lovey.

This unpleasant little exchange did lead us to discover the superb Alpina restaurant just a few blocks from the hotel. Here we enjoyed authentic Ukrainian cuisine and a couple of glasses of a Moldavian Cabernet Sauvignon in a relaxed, friendly atmosphere at a price that represented great value. Our meal inside us and the rain still pelting down, we retired to our room and drank our Odessan ‘Champagne’ watching more of the Ukrainian cooking programmes to which, by now, I had become addicted.

Sunday, 14th September 2008

A misleading, clear blue sky announced the day, fooling us into shorts and t-shirts which post-breakfast clouds heralded a mistake; the temperature hovered at a worse than predicted 16 degrees, a coolness exacerbated by a light breeze blowing in from the Black Sea.

Still, there was much to be done, so we made a valiant effort to get around as much as we could, visiting and photographing the amazing National Opera House, City Hall, the bust of Pushkin, Prymorsky bulvar, the Potemkin Steps (only so called after the wildly inaccurate 1925 film Battleship Potemkin), the port itself and the recently relocated statue of Catherine the Great, as well as the more permanent one of Duc de Richelieu, overlooking those famous steps in his Roman toga.

We lunched again at the excellent ‘Bulvar’ restaurant before taking a turn around the grounds of the Vorontsov Palace, now a music academy, and ‘Mother-in-Law’s Bridge’ before a trip back to the hotel to change into a less conspicuous, more sensible jeans and coat arrangement; the sun had sort of remained, but in a diluted, cloudy form. A half hour walk back afforded us the opportunity to enjoy a couple of expensive pints of Guinness and Kilkenny in Mick O’Neill’s Irish Bar, before a quick supper and trek back to the hotel for our bags. A short walk to the station and we were on the 10.51 night train bound for Simferopol, ready for our transfer to Yalta. Crimea, here we come.

Ukrainian adventure, part 2: Lviv, jewel of the West

Tuesday, 9th September 2008

A fun start to the day was had as our train rolled in to Lviv station bang on time at 6.32am, but our transfer driver couldn’t be bothered to drag his scraggy carcase out of bed to deliver us to the Hotel Dnister. Forty minutes of waiting around in the chill morning air in just shorts and t-shirts was enough to prompt us to the decision of procuring a taxi and despatching ourselves to our lodgings under our own steam.

With a less than satisfactory start to the morning already under our belt, not being able to check in to the Dnister until 12 noon simply compounded the problem, and these events conspired with our tiredness to imbue the day with a disagreeable cast that proved irksome to shake. Wandering around in the cold morning light like homeless urchins was doing little to improve our humour, so we retreated once again to the hotel to sustain ourselves with a 60 hryvnia breakfast. We managed to spin this out for an hour, and then attacked the city again with renewed vigour and warmer sunshine.

Beautiful as Lviv is (some call it the Florence of the east) it seemed hard to put any kind of itinerary together that would suit us; it may just have been the awkward mood exhaustion had put us in, of course. We did take the 409 steps up to the top of the town hall tower, which afforded us spectacular views over the domes and spires of the city, and then spent the morning wandering the ancient streets, taking in the essence of this quintessentially medieval old town which feels less Soviet than any other we had visited in the Russian Federation or former USSR, barring, of course, St Petersburg itself.

A high point was our stop off at ‘Fresh Cava’, a unique little ‘haunted’ coffee house, where we sampled a ‘fresh white chocolate’ – “only in Lviv” – which was a heavenly cup of melted white chocolate with a liberal scattering of chopped almonds; delicious! A lunch of chicken with cheese was taken at Hors, further into the city centre, which was washed down with a perfectly acceptable Ukrainian red – Inkerman medium-dry.

A number two tram did its level best to return us to base (the journey itself providing spiritual sustenance as we were serenaded by a small choir of Ukrainian elders imparting a beautifully sung hymnal in their mother tongue) but, as is our wont, we decided to take a short cut from the tram stop back to the hotel, arriving in reception some fifty minutes later, feet like charred stumps. A message was waiting for us from our humbly apologetic Ukraine administrator, Dialog: they were terribly sorry our driver had not collected us that morning – there had been a mix-up over timings. Just as we thought – he hadn’t got up in time. By way of recompense, they promised they would collect us from the Dnister on Wednesday “at 7pm sharp”. Oh dear, if they didn’t show again it would leave us very little time to organise our own taxi to get us to the train station in time for our 7.45 departure. All Russian and former USSR trains, despite being slow, are frighteningly prompt; something we Brits, of course, are just not used to. I suppose we could give them until five past, but their previous record (apparently, according to Regent, they had done exactly the same thing to a couple the day before, at the same station) didn’t instil us with confidence. We’d have to wait and see.

An hour on the bed enlivened us sufficiently to enjoy gin and tonics on the 9th floor Panorama Bar, watching the golden glow of the sunset over the city’s elegant architecture, before heading for the restaurant and some delicious borsch, salad and more red wine. Aah, “time for bed,” said Zebedee.

Wednesday, 10th September 2008

After breakfasting on the balcony in the warm autumn sunshine, we headed into the city to explore the ‘High Castle Hill’ which, after much toing and froing, we found ourselves at by midday. It was hardly a castle, but did provide a superb viewing-point for photos. There were padlocks fastened to the railing around the summit, reminiscent of those in Vilnius, deposited by newlyweds in the superstitious hope that this would bring luck in the years to come. Opportunistic locals gathered also, in the hope of renting you a pair of binoculars or selling you a souvenir of Lviv. I purchased a set of twelve pen and ink sketches of the city for the princely sum of 25 hryvnia (£2.97) which were actually quite charming.

A lunch of Ukrainian salads at the restaurant at the base of Castle Hill sustained us for a journey to Lychakivsky Cemetery in the afternoon. The number 7 tram that should have taken us there in just five stops from the city centre was not running, so we eventually joined forces with fellow Brits Nathan and Ruth, whom we met at the tram stop. Clubbing together for the 20 hryvnia taxi journey proved a satisfying way to tick this one off our list. The cemetery itself was a truly amazing experience, the vast expanse of it proving a touch daunting.

A gothic hour was brought to a close with a short walk and a number 2 tram ride back to striking distance of the Dnister, where a rest, a few drinks in the Panorama bar and a dinner of solyanka soup and veal burgers, washed down with a Ukrainian red, brought a superb day to a close. Our impression of this city had been wonderfully warmed with our second day experience; Lviv has a charm all of its own, and is certainly one of the more rewarding gems in the Ukrainian crown. There’s a peacefulness about this compact medieval haven reminiscent of sleepy Transylvanian towns and villages, and the sense of warmth and belonging it imbues leave an indelible longing somewhere in your middle; Lviv begs you to return and it’s going to be very difficult to say no.

Thursday, 11th September 2008

Awoke after a fairly restless night, and breakfasted on the balcony in the autumn sunshine. After packing ready for check-out, we headed into the city for the final time, managing at last to track down the book shops where I purchased a couple of volumes on Lviv.

After a leisurely morning enjoying beers at our local by the town hall square, we wandered around photographing the amazing Lviv architecture before settling to a bitter orange hot chocolate at ‘Fresh Cava’; sublime!

More photography of the city’s amazing churches  was a prelude to a delicious lunch of borsch soup and ‘Budapest’ salad at one of Lviv’s more superior eateries, washed down with a more than palatable bottle of Moldavian merlot, which whiled away a couple of our last few hours. As we dined, Ukranian storm clouds rolled in and we found ourselves in the middle of an autumn downpour, which all seemed to add to the atmosphere.

After the late lunch, we wandered around in the rain, visiting and photographing the Dominican church and monastery, before walking back to the Hotel Dnister ready for our transfer. The driver, armed with a bottle of Odessa ‘Champagne’ by way of apology, did turn up, and we found ourselves at Lviv station in time for a beer, and the chance to purchase some light refreshments for the train journey ahead. Odessa here we come!

Ukrainian adventure, part 1: Kiev, Chernobyl and Pripyat

Friday, 5th September, 2008

I suppose today could be considered the start of our planned trip across the Ukraine. I had wanted to take in Kiev, Chernobyl, Lviv, Odessa and the Crimea, all within a two week period. My original planning took flight on the same confident wings that had taken us from St Petersburg to Moscow the previous year. However, planning any kind of travel throughout the former USSR can be a daunting task, with language and a touch of former Soviet stubbornness being the main barriers. Help was enlisted from the saintly Andrea Godfrey of Regent Holidays, who sorted everything to the finest detail, even down to booking “es vay” rail travel, ensuring we had a twin berth to ourselves; so that’s where we’d gone wrong in Russia.

We left Fleetwood on a blustery autumn day and arrived at Manchester for our BA shuttle flight to Gatwick. We then spent a wonderful evening at the Arora Hotel in Crawley, which provided the perfect prelude to our adventure, with a superb meal in the restaurant followed by a particularly good Shiraz in the bar.

Saturday, 6th September 2008

Without a horrendously early start, we took breakfast in the hotel’s restaurant, and transferred back to Gatwick, where after a chaotic check-in, we boarded our Ukraine International flight to Kiev. The flight was excellent, and afforded me the opportunity to meet Allan Wright, who had spent some years working, living and travelling in the Ukraine, and was able to give me some useful tips.

After landing, we managed to get through the cumbersome immigration system, forced to join the queue other than that for Ukrainian nationals. None of the officials here were in anything approaching a hurry, but the bonus was that, by the time we had completed this irksome process, our bags were gleefully waltzing around the luggage conveyor unaccompanied, minxes that they were.

Transfer to the Ukraina Hotel took about twenty minutes, and it was delightfully placed in Independence Square right in the heart of things. Wow! With its closed off streets, 28 degree sunshine and superb atmosphere, Kiev had thrown a massive party to which we were most definitely invited.

Having overcome the panic of a global ATM crash when, for a miserably long hour we thought neither of our debit cards would work in the Ukraine, we basked in the fun and games upon which evening placed no curfew. All that remained was to grab a quick McDonald’s supper and head off to bed, content in the knowledge that we already loved Kiev (or, to grant the city its correct name, Kyiv) deeply, and tomorrow we would get that rare chance to visit the site of the world’s worst ever nuclear ‘accident’.

Sunday, 7th September 2008

The day of our much planned trip to Chernobyl had finally arrived, and Sergey our driver arrived in his rather battered white volkswagen minibus nice and prompt at only twenty minutes late. This vehicle had certainly seen better days; maybe it wasn’t worth sending anything any newer on repeated trips into the exclusion zones. We were joined on our adventure by four amiable Polish lads and, without further ado, embarked upon our 50 kilometre journey north towards Chernobyl.

A few minutes prior to the first checkpoint, we collected Dennis, our guide for the day. A fairly laid-back chap in his late twenties, he was well used to the daily grind of life in the exclusion zones; he makes the trip around sixteen times a month, getting a thorough health check every June: “so far, so good,” he told us.

Before long we were having our passports examined by the officials at that first checkpoint. This was it then – we were inside the 30 kilometre exclusion zone; no going back now. First stop was the Chernobyl Interinform for a history lesson and a briefing. These are the official offices for research and management of the area and, although fairly utilitarian in look and feel, provide an invaluable base for scientists and officials alike. There is something quietly disconcerting about being asked to sign a disclaimer, promising not only that you’ll abide by all the rules (don’t step where you shouldn’t or do anything you’re told not to) but also that you’ll have no claim against the authorities should ‘your health deteriorate following your visit’ – not quite ‘abandon hope all ye who enter here’ but along the same kind of lines.

Once on the road again, a surprise stop was at the Chernobyl village store. “We don’t stop for lunch until 2.30,” Dennis advised, “so buy your water and beer now.” And that set the tone for what turned out to be very much a lads’ day out; there was much beer drinking (even by the driver, rather worryingly) and a good measure of gallows humour, none of which detracted for one second from the seriousness either of what had happened here twenty-two years earlier, or what we were ourselves undertaking. A brief stop at the firemen’s memorial a little further down the road was a poignant reminder of the tragic consequences of this monumental accident; these men were cast forever in the ore that immortalised them. In real life, each was dead within six weeks of extinguishing that devastating blaze at reactor number four: not one knew the serious risk he was taking in the performing of his duty; these men were real heroes.

After a brief stop at the ‘ghost village’ – the only one razed completely to the ground in an experiment to stop the spread of radiation – it was onward to the infamous reactor itself, complete with decaying concrete sarcophagus desperately hanging on to its belly full of lethal radioactive left-overs until the new steel structure can be built alongside it and slid into place in 2009. Unstable it may be, but this sarcophagus is still worth its weight in gold to the surrounding regions. A pause on the way afforded us the opportunity to throw chunks of bread to the two metre catfish, thriving happily in the reactor’s cooling pond; the plethora of flora and fauna which abound throughout all three exclusions zones provide testimony to the fact that this apocalyptic nuclear disaster was not universally cataclysmic in its effect. It’s an ill wind…

Leaving the destroyed reactor in our wake, we next fetched up at the deserted town of Pripyat. Built in 1970, this settlement was created purely for population by the Chernobyl work force and their families. How achingly tragic it feels to wander through the dilapidated apartments, restaurant, supermarket and kindergarten, with abandoned signs of life apparent throughout – a shoe here, a doll’s head there, but nothing prepares you for the devastated fair ground. How hard it is to imagine that these bumper cars, the swings, the huge ferris wheel, were never actually ridden upon; this fun fair was set to open just five days after the accident. Now it lies empty, rotting, desolate, the big wheel stretching skywards like a huge mechanical cobweb – a timely reminder that this was once a thriving community with a future. Regular readings from Dennis’s dosimeter ranged from 700 microroentgens to a whopping 2,000 in places; permitted background radiation for Kiev is no more than fifty.

One more stop gave us a glimpse of the boat graveyard, littered with vessels far too radioactive to serve, languishing away in their rusty, skeletal state. These were boats that would never sail again.

After a delicious four course lunch at the Chernobyl Interinform, it was back on the road again, through both checkpoints and on to the decontamination chamber, a unit specifically set up to read our radiation levels before leaving the zone. Cleared by officials, all that remained was the ninety minute journey back to Kiev. What a way to spend a Sunday.

Our evening was spent leisurely strolling around this wonderful city, soaking its electrifying after-dark atmosphere, taking a few photos and eventually settling into the Ukraina restaurant for an authentic – and delicious – chicken Kiev, washed down with a tolerably good cabernet sauvignon at just over a tenner. We’d struggled to find a bar that would sell a bottle of wine for anything under thirty quid, settling instead for a pint of ‘Newcy brown’ at the trendy underground Dockers ABC bar. After purchasing a second bottle which was intended for the third floor bar of our hotel, we were forced to retire to our room to enjoy it (”you can’t drink here – we close at eleven!” It was twenty-five past ten). Off to the room and bed, then – it would be our only proper day to explore Kiev tomorrow.

Monday, 8th September 2008

After a fairly late 9am start, we took a breakfast of cold meats and cheese in the Ukraina restaurant before embarking on our own style whistle-stop tour of the city. We were never going to be able to do anywhere near as much as we wanted, so we had to pick a sensible, achievable agenda. After performing a minor miracle with our luggage, meaning we only had to take the essentials (camera, lenses, money) around with us for the day, we secured our suitcases in the hotel’s luggage room.

Two stops on the metro took us to our first priority – the Chernobyl Museum. Now it might sound a bit like overkill, but it was the perfect supplement to yesterday’s visit. There were no English guides available, which merited a partial refund on the admission price, but none was necessary; the haunting images and tableaux spoke for themselves.

After a couple of white beers (’Chernigivskiy Bile’) in the ninety degree sunshine and a spot of lunch, we made our way to St Sofia’s Cathedral, originally built in the eleventh century with eighteenth century baroque additions of gold domes and a wedding cake bell tower. This stunning piece of architecture is truly breathtaking in its hues of gold and green, its ancient heritage providing a stark contrast to St Michael’s Monastery just up the road. You’d never believe it, but this beautiful blue and white structure, again with glistening domes of gold, is actually a modern replica of the medieval baroque style original of 1108, torn down by the Soviets in 1936 and painstakingly reconstructed to open in 2001.

The funicular railway at the back of the monastery took us down to the banks of the river Dnipro, site of an amazing statue paying tribute to Ukrainian naval heroes of the second World War, before our tube took us back the one stop to vulytsya Khreshchatyk (the main street) and more beer.

All that remained was for us to buy provisions (red wine, crisps, sandwiches and chocolate) in preparation for our overnight train journey to Lviv. It is in our little first class, two-berth cabin that I sit now as I write this entry, sipping elegantly on a plastic cup of wine.

Chernobyl and Pripyat: after the Wormwood nuclear holocaust

I’m not really sure what I expected of my trip to Chernobyl. I’d read plenty about the subject for many months before my eventual arrival in the Ukrainian capital Kiev, weighed up time and again the moral and safety issues and ultimately decided to take the plunge. The world’s worst nuclear disaster was, ironically, the result of a completely unnecessary safety test. It was the night of 25th April, 1986, and reactor number 4 at the electricity-producing Chernobyl power plant in northern Ukraine was scheduled to be shut down for routine maintenance. The workers made the fatal decision to see if, in the event of a shut down, enough electricity would remain in the grid to power the cooling system for the reactor core; they thus turned off the emergency cooling system.

The carnage that ensued was the result of a culmination of factors, including a design flaw in the type of RBMK reactor at Chernobyl, operational errors and safety procedures which were at best not adhered to and at worst totally ignored. What resulted was a power surge, which in turn led to a massive escape of steam triggering a full-blown nuclear explosion. At 1:26 on the morning of 26th April, 1986, the reactor’s 500-tonne top was breached by a huge fireball discharging nine tonnes of radioactive material into the atmosphere, more than ninety times the amount released in the Hiroshima bomb. The deadly radiation cloud, rich in Cesium-137 and strontium-90, was blown north and west over the next few days, falling patchily over Kiev, but mainly Belarus. In typical Soviet style, the problem was not reported and May Day celebrations continued on the streets of the Ukrainian capital and, terrifyingly, in the impossibly dangerous Chernobyl area, in particular the Soviet model town of Pripyat, within spitting distance of the stricken reactor. It was only when the poisonous radiation clouds were detected as far north as Scandinavia that Swedish scientists alerted the world and the USSR had to come clean.

For too many, by this time it was too late; two people had been killed in the accident itself, but 29 brave firemen were sent in to extinguish the blaze and had neither knowledge of or protection from what they were dealing with. Each had perished horribly and agonisingly within six weeks. Some 135,000 souls were evacuated ‘temporarily’ from Pripyat without any belongings; they have never been able to return.

The long term effects of the disaster are still being evaluated. The most obvious impact has been a massive increase in cases of thyroid cancer in young children, mainly due to the fact that their cells are still dividing and, as they grow, their bodies absorb radioctive substances which mimic essential calcium. The number of extra cases is thought to be around 2,000. Of the 600,000 ‘liquidators’ sent in to clean up, more than 4,000 have died from exposure to radiation, and a further 170,000 have developed other fatal diseases.

Furthermore, some 35,000 square kilometres of forest have been contaminated, leading to unacceptably high radiation levels in meat, milk, vegetables and fruit. The most dangerous foodstuffs are berries and mushrooms. Silt carried down the Dnipro river is highly radioactive, although it’s almost impossible to measure constant levels precisely. Birth defects, suicides and deaths from heart disease and alcoholism are exceptionally high, and by 2015 it is estimated the ‘accident’ will have cost the economy in excess of $200 billion.

It was as late as the year 2000 that the last working reactor at Chernobyl, number 3, was finally decommissioned and shut down. Number 4 is still a deep, dark, threatening ghost, ‘a monster which is always near’ according to one of the 8,000 scientific staff and monitors who travel to the site on a daily basis from the new town of Slavutych. In the months that followed the explosion, the destroyed reactor and over 180 tonnes of radioactive chunks were hastily covered over with a concrete and steel sarcophagus.

In the intervening years, some 350 ardent locals have moved back into the zone, preferring to take their chances with the silent, unseen spectre of radiation than face life in the crowded tenements they had relocated to. They grow and eat contaminated food in contaminated land, and drink contaminated water, yet they not only survive but thrive. It is almost as much of a phenomenon as the flourishing wildlife inhabiting this unlikely natural haven, almost completely reclaimed by mother nature.

Our visit to this abandoned land wasn’t the easiest trip in the world to organise, but we finally got things arranged through CAM travel company, but it was necessary to arrange an international transfer of the funds in US dollars. We nearly lost our booking, however, when CAM had to pay $48 in fees to their receiving bank and therefore didn’t reserve our places because “the money was not enough”. Given that we’d already sent across almost $700, this was more than a little irritating; all they had to do was ask. But, fortunately, we are clairvoyant and did send that last minute email the week before the tour, just to make sure everything was alright. A little knowledge is a wonderful thing.

The day arrived, and Sergei our driver arrived in his rather battered white volkswagen minibus nice and prompt at only twenty minutes late. This vehicle had certainly seen better days; maybe it wasn’t worth sending anything any newer on repeated trips into the exclusion zones. We were joined on our adventure by four amiable Polish lads and, without further ado, embarked upon our 50 kilometre journey north towards Chernobyl.

A few minutes prior to the first checkpoint, we collected Dennis, our guide for the day. A fairly laid-back chap in his late twenties, he was well used to the daily grind of life in the exclusion zones; he makes the trip around sixteen times a month, getting a thorough health check every June: “so far, so good,” he told us.

Before long we were having our passports examined by the officials at that first checkpoint. This was it then – we were inside the 30 kilometre exclusion zone; no going back now. First stop was the Chernobyl Interinform for a history lesson and a briefing. These are the official offices for research and management of the area and, although fairly utilitarian in look and feel, provide an invaluable base for scientists and officials alike. There is something quietly disconcerting about being asked to sign a disclaimer, promising not only that you’ll abide by all the rules (don’t step where you shouldn’t or do anything you’re told not to) but also that you’ll have no claim against the authorities should ‘your health deteriorate following your visit’ – not quite ‘abandon hope all ye who enter here’ but along the same kind of lines.

Once on the road again, a surprise stop was at the Chernobyl village store. “We don’t stop for lunch until 2.30,” Dennis advised, “so buy your water and beer now.” And that set the tone for what turned out to be very much a lads’ day out; there was much beer drinking (even by the driver, rather worryingly) and a good measure of gallows humour, none of which detracted for one second from the seriousness either of what had happened here twenty-two years earlier, or what we were ourselves undertaking. A brief stop at the firemen’s memorial a little further down the road was a poignant reminder of the tragic consequences of this monumental accident; these men were cast forever in the ore that immortalised them; they were real heroes.

After a brief stop at the ‘ghost village’ – the only one razed completely to the ground in an experiment to stop the spread of radiation – it was onward to the infamous reactor itself, complete with decaying concrete sarcophagus desperately hanging on to its belly full of lethal radioactive left-overs until the new steel structure can be built alongside it and slid into place in 2009. This time it’s supposed to last a minimum of 100 years and a maximum of 300; this is a problem that will never go away.

Unstable it may be, but this sarcophagus is still worth its weight in gold to the surrounding regions. A pause on the way afforded us the opportunity to throw chunks of bread to the two metre catfish, thriving happily in the reactor’s cooling pond; the plethora of flora and fauna which abound throughout all three exclusions zones provide testimony to the fact that this apocalyptic nuclear disaster was not universally cataclysmic in its effect. It’s an ill wind…

Leaving the destroyed reactor in our wake, we next fetched up at the deserted town of Pripyat. Built in 1970, this settlement was created purely for population by the Chernobyl work force and their families. How achingly tragic it feels to wander through the dilapidated apartments, restaurant, supermarket and kindergarten, with abandoned signs of life apparent throughout – a shoe here, a doll’s head there, but nothing prepares you for the devastated fair ground. How hard it is to imagine that these bumper cars, the swings, the huge ferris wheel, were never actually ridden upon; this fun fair was set to open just five days after the accident. Now it lies empty, rotting, desolate, the big wheel stretching skywards like a huge mechanical cobweb – a timely reminder that this was once a thriving community with a future. Regular readings from Dennis’s dosimeter ranged from 700 microroentgens to a whopping 2,000 in places; permitted background radiation for Kiev is no more than fifty.

One more stop gave us a glimpse of the boat graveyard, littered with vessels far too radioactive to serve, languishing away in their rusty, skeletal state. These were boats that would never sail again.

After a delicious four course lunch at the Chernobyl Interinform, it was back on the road again, through both checkpoints and on to the decontamination chamber, a unit specifically set up to read our radiation levels before leaving the zone. Cleared by officials, all that remained was the ninety minute journey back to Kiev. What a way to spend a Sunday.